Blue Wahoos Stadium Getting Infield Makeover Before Season 

The Blue Wahoos took another step this week in a long-awaited return to playing a baseball season.

Dustin Hannah, the team’s head groundskeeper, worked March 11 and 12**th** with a team from River Region Sports Fields in Millbrook, Alabama, located near Montgomery, to restore the entire infield area to its optimum condition.

“These guys are great to work with,” Hannah said. “It’s special to get this field back to how we want it to look and play. This is the first time we’ve done this kind of work since January 2020 when we were getting ready for the Oklahoma-Virginia college baseball series.”

A few weeks after those two teams played a three-game series at Blue Wahoos Stadium, the first onslaught of the global coronavirus pandemic struck. Since then, of course, the world changed and all sports and sporting venues across the nation have been affected.

When the Blue Wahoos play their home-opening series, beginning May 11, against the Birmingham Barons, it will be the first Blue Wahoos game since a Southern League playoff game vs. Biloxi in early September 2019.

Since then, the field at Blue Wahoos Stadium has been utilized for wide variety of events.

The Blue Wahoos have hosted everything from high school graduations to disc golf and target golf and flag football. From dinner events, to a cross-fit competition. And from more than 75 group stays with the Blue Wahoos Airbnb experience, along with so many other on-field events, utilizing the batting cage and playing surface.

River Region, a renown sports turf and sports field construction company, has been a long-standing partner with the Blue Wahoos. The company been a frequent visitor.

River Region has also aided with other area fields at the University of West Florida and local high schools. They are a partner with Troy University and Auburn University for their stadiums.

Using a variety of machinery, a group of specialists from the company were able to restore the clay surface infield, the pitcher’s mound, batters’ boxes and home plate area.

“The first thing was home plate and getting it back to its proper grade,” Hannah said. “You need to make sure it’s flat and perfect and ready for baseball. They have also helped check the measurements on the pitching mound, the slope and make sure the mound is up to Major League Baseball standards.

“Using the tiller machinery, they have tilled the infield to about three inches thickness and they will add about a truck load of new infield clay to make sure it is flat, smooth and ready to go.”

The team replaced worn out grass in front of the pitcher’s mound and behind the home plate area. Both were areas well-used during the past 12 months of various events. The playing surface at Blue Wahoos Stadium is the original one -- now 10 years old -- and well past the normal life of a grass field.

For this season, however, one more year of the existing surface will be in place before planned changes are made.

The restored field will have its first baseball use March 15 when Gulf Breeze High and Escambia High play at the ballpark.

During the next few weeks, Hannah will help nurture the regrowth of the Bermuda grass on the field.

As he explained Bermuda grass begins to generate and grow whenever the combination of the daytime and nighttime temperature exceeds 130 degrees. The weather forecast for Pensacola in the next week has temperatures reaching 70 degrees with night time lows not falling below 60, so the grass should begin to grow.

“It has to be a consistent pattern of that 130 degree combination, so we should start seeing it happen,” Hannah said.